If Fayre’s last words were harsh his smile was very friendly as he extended his hand in farewell. Weakness had always irritated and, at the same time, appealed to him and he had only just begun to understand how peculiarly helpless the class to which this man belonged must be.
The tramp thrust a limp hand into his extended one. He was evidently struggling for expression.
“Thank you, mister; I shan’t forget it,” was all he said, but Fayre knew he spoke the truth.
He had reached the door when the man called him back.
“I say, mister, I reckon you’d best take these towards that there half-crown. It’s all I got left.”
He was holding out the small pile of coppers that had been on the table by his side. Fayre took them from him and gently laid them down again beside the folded red handkerchief. The man watched him and, as he did so, his eyes fell on a small object which lay among his pitiful possessions.
“I’d rather you took it, mister,” he said half-heartedly.
Then, as Fayre shook his head: “Thank you kindly, all the same. You were askin’ if there was anythin’, no matter how small, as I could remember. There’s that, if it’s any use to you. It ’ad gone clean out of my ’ead. It won’t ’elp you much, but if I’d remembered I’d ’a’ give it to you. By the gate of the farm, it was. I stepped on it in the dark goin’ in, when I was on my way to the barn.”
He held out his hand and in the palm was lying the cap of a “Red Dwarf” stylographic pen.